It’s been an excellent few months for startups in China’s sharing economy. Perhaps too good. The bike-sharing industry landed its first unicorn, and companies that allow phone users to share battery packs have raised at least $150 million in recent weeks. But at the same time, one startup recently announced that it expects to share at least 500,000 umbrellas in ...

What’s Europe’s most profitable airline? Air France-KLM, whose premium passengers sleep in private suites with memory-foam mattresses, dine on Joël Robuchon dishes and have private jets at their disposal? Or Ryanair Plc, which offers flights starting at 10 euros and whose chief executive officer has mused about charging passengers for toilet visits? No prizes for guessing it’s Ryanair. Trailing 12-month ...

For years, mobile phone owners have had access to just one digital assistant — Siri on an iPhone, Google Now/Google Assistant on an Android device, Cortana on a Windows one. Now that’s changing as multiple assistants proliferate to multiple phones. It sounds like an epidemic case of multiple personality disorder but it’s actually a step toward a future in which ...

RIYADH / AGENCIES Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said on Sunday that extending the current agreement on global oil supply cuts until March next year, and adding one or two small producers to the pact, should be enough to reduce oil inventories. “We believe that continuation with the same level of cuts, plus eventually adding one or two small producers … ...

Bloomberg India’s first producer of natural gas from coal seams in the country’s oldest mining region will spend about $1 billion to look for some of the newest forms of energy. Great Eastern Energy Corp. will invest as much as 20 billion rupees ($312 million) over the next four to five years to drill 144 new wells at its Raniganj ...

Bloomberg BHP Billiton Ltd. is considering further sales of its US shale gas assets as it fends off the second round of attack from activist hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. over the future of the energy business within the world’s biggest mining company. “If there is a natural owner out there who believes more upside can be achieved within this ...

Bloomberg Chevron Corp.’s Gorgon liquefied natural gas plant shut a produ-ction train for about a month, at least the eighth outage since operations started 14 months ago at the most-expensive project in the company’s history. Train 1 at the $54 billion project on Barrow Island off northwest Australia shut last week to replace a failed flow-measurement device, Cameron Van Ast, ...

Bloomberg The worst may not be over for Chinese corporate bonds as the government pushes ahead with its campaign to reduce leverage in the debt market, according to investors including Invesco Ltd. The crackdown on the use of borrowed money to invest in financial assets has led to Chinese companies canceling 184 billion yuan ($27 billion) of bond sales this ...

Bloomberg Takata Corp., which is seeking a buyer following the auto industry’s biggest ever safety recall, surged the most in four months after some car makers reached settlements worth $553 million to resolve economic-loss claims tied to the company’s faulty products. Toyota Motor Corp., Subaru Corp., Mazda Motor Corp. and BMW will reimburse out-of-pocket expenses, provide loaners to some vehicle ...

Bloomberg SoftBank Group Corp. and Saudi Arabia formally announced the first round of capital commitments for the largest- ever technology investment fund, as founder Masayoshi Son seeks to accelerate his financing of cutting-edge technologies and startups. More than $93 billion has been secured from backers led by the Japanese company and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, SoftBank said in a ...